Page 5 - Small Stans Outlook 2024

demarcated under the former Soviet Union have several times exploded into armed clashes over the years, including a brief and bloody Tajik “invasion” in September 2022.
Like all the Central Asian states, Kyrgyzstan attempts to keep up strong relations with both Russia and China, while looking for opportunities from amicable relations with other major powers such as Europe. Relations with the West are presently under some strain given how Kyrgyzstan has become an important third country to Moscow in terms of obtaining goods subject to sanctions via re-export arrangements conducted in the shadows.
1.2 Politics - Tajikistan
Emomali Rahmon will in 2024 celebrate 30 years as president of Tajikistan.
For several years there have been strong rumours of 71-year-old Rahmon preparing to hand over power to his 36-year-old son and mayor of Dushanbe Rustam Emomali. But as Galiya Ibragimova pointed out in a late December piece for Carnegie Endowment, there is no consensus within the strongman’s large family over the succession. Some of the president’s other children have their own ambitions to run the country, it seems. Such rivalry could delay or even derail plans for the transition.
Though some observers think Rustam Emomali as president would bring in some long-desired reforms, he is not seen as a charismatic or inspiring figure. All of his public appearances are prerecorded and accompanied by information read out by the broadcaster. The people have not heard him speak. His nickname on social media is “the great mute.” More worryingly, notes Ibragimova, the heir apparent has reportedly shot and wounded two people: his
own uncle in 2008, and – just last year – the head of the State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, purportedly for refusing to carry out orders.
The analyst warns that infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the country’s regions could shatter the stability that Rahmon has been building in Tajikistan for so many years.
The Rahmon regime’s crackdowns on opponents in the past couple of years have been suffocating and brutal, particularly in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in the east. Rahmon might be trying to enforce stability ahead of the succession.
In December, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Ben Cardin, in a statement urged Rahmon "to immediately end" the repression of peaceful demonstrators, community leaders, journalists and activists in Tajikistan, as well as "all forms of transnational repression."
Cardin, a Democrat, drew attention to “persistent reports of arbitrary arrest, denial of judicial due process, as well as acts of violence including torture, assault and even instances of murder of journalists, political dissidents, as well as community and religious leaders”.
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